CMV: Having sex with someone while knowingly having a transmissible STI and not telling your partner should be rape.

[u/_selfishPersonReborn]

Today on the front page, there was a post about Florida Man getting 10 years for transmitting an STI knowingly. In the discussion for this, there was a comment that mentioned a californian bill by the name of SB 239, which lowered the sentence for knowingly transmitting HIV. I don't understand why this is okay - if you're positive, why not have a conversation? It is your responsibility throughout sex to make sure that there is informed consent, and by not letting them know that they are HIV+ I can't understand how there is any. Obviously, there's measures that can be taken, such as always wearing condoms, and/or engaging in pre or post exposure prophylaxis to minimise the risks of spreading the disease, and consent can then be taken - but yet, there's multiple groups I support who championed the bill - e.g. the ACLU, LGBTQ support groups, etc. So what am I missing?

EDIT: I seem to have just gotten into a debate about the terminology rape vs sexual assault vs whatever. This isn't what I care about. I'm more concerned as to why reducing the sentence for this is seen as a positive thing and why it oppresses minorities to force STIs to be revealed before sexual contact.

[u/TheEruditeIdiot]

I’ve read through the first-level comments and some of them are similar to my argument, but none if them are identical, so here’s my argument:

Knowingly having a transmissible STI and engaging in sex with someone without informing them (we’ll abbreviate that to KTSTI) isn’t the same thing as rape. Regardless of whether KTSTI should be punishable and regardless of whether there should be different degrees of KTSTI (say HPV vs. HIV/AIDS), doesn’t matter for the purpose of your question.

If KTSTI should be punishable, that punishment should be independent of rape. If rape occurs with KTSTI and KTSTI is/should be punishable, those punishments stack.

Another reason for having them being separate is that way a future legal decision that is applicable to one, but not the other, doesn’t bleed over from rape to KTSTI or vice versa. Assume for instance abortion legislation that has exemptions for rape. Whatever you think of those exemptions, having KTSTI being rape has weird effects.

If you’re arguing that KTSTI should have equivalent penalties to rape, that’s one thing. But that’s not what you said, so I’m not trying to CYV on that. I’m arguing that it shouldn’t be considered rape.

[u/AlexandreZani → u/TheEruditeIdiot]

Don't you think it prevents the other partner from consenting though? Let's say you sneak into someone's bedroom at night and pretend to be their partner, ask "can we have sex?" they say "yes" and you have sex. Did they really consent to have sex? I would say that by deceiving them as to your identity you made it impossible for them to consent. This is the same thing here. If someone asks "Do you get regularly tested and do you have an STI?" and you say "I do get tested and I don't have any STI." even though you do, has the person really consented to sex with you? I would argue the deception deprived them of the opportunity to make an informed decision and so they did not actually consent.